Five Ways
by It'sTimeToDance
Summary: Five things that might have gone differently.


**Five Things That Could Have Been**

She presses herself to his back, her bodice warm, yet cold, through the thin cloth of his dirty shirt. He grips his knives tighter in his palms, the cloth pausing in their rythmic stroke. His muscles clentch at the uninvited contact, while her hair brushes his neck.

He tells her to leave. He can feel her hurt, her resentment, at the gruff order. He can feel her longing, without looking at her. Her longing, once an advantage, is now an irritation. A longing, an affection, perhaps love, if she's at all capable. She tries, she wants, though even she knows she can never have. She knows it.

She's not Lucy.

Once he hears the door scuff the frame and her feet scuffle down the stairs, his mindset leaps. He places his knive, the one Turpin's throat is heartfully promised, into it's case, admiring the glisten they reflect off the scarf bit of sunshine through the towering window. They are, as it seems, the only things capable of shining, here in London.

He knows she'll resent the fact. That she is not Lucy. That she is not her, with her draying, beehive hair and her dray, long, aged face, though she is young. She resents him, for not seeing her that way. She resents not _being _Lucy.

And he knows, as he pulls out the tuff of rope and ties it around a beam of wood above him, that she won't cry. That she'll tut her brittle lips and shake her head down the stairs, letting his body drop for one last bit of meatpie to let her slide into early retirment. She'll mourn, more then him himself, the life she'd imagined, he slaughtering every fool to ask for a shave, and her cooking them into those blasted pies. Maybe, she'll spare a tear. Not that he could care.

He knows, as the course straw rope is placed around his bared neck, that, try as she might, she could never replace her.

''''

Joanna sings a sweet tune to herself as the sun bask her alabastor skin. Her fingers work gracefully with her string, rythmically moving along with the gentle song of the little blue bird perched in it's cage beside her. Her flowing yellow hair falls down her slim back. Her radiant beauty, thirteen years grown, is only matched by that of her mother's, who sits beside her father with a glowing smile stretched across her face.

Her father, a barber, here on Fleet Street, cleans his tools of the white shaving cream, hours old, with a rag of fabric his wife had woven to an old baby cloth. He smiles, for no reason other then the sheer joy of life. His daughter's song flows through the wind, making the sun seem that much brighter.

Yes, he thinks, dipping the rag into the small basin of saopy water beside his seat, silently answering hsi unspoken question, it could not possibly be better.

'''

Benjamin Barker drives his shovel into the mound of coal beside his feet, the drips of sweat sliding from his forehead and curing around his lips, the salty twinge bitter on his dry tongue. The overseer's whip cracks in the air, the sound of flesh tearing soon following. Some unlucky soul yelps at his misfortune.

The steam hangs over his head and into his skin, sending another burst of hot sweat down his face. The sky is grey, and smoke fills his lungs until he is panting. He looks at the other workers. Some, a few number, have a hopeful shine in their eyes. Those were the lucky ones, who had limited days to spend. They had the taste of freedom still on their tongue's, and they could rightfully imagine tasting it anew, without the bitter tang of impossibility smacking them upside the head.

When you thought of it, there were probably about ten souls on this island who were not falsley imprisoned for what ever deed they had dare disgrace upon the likes of Britain. Though all, even the guilty, did not seem to diserve such torture.

The loud clang blasted through the thick air, signaling the end of the day. No, more a warning. Get your two hours, for anything less and you'll be dead on your feet. It's not something you'd like to be, here on the coal fields.

His blisted hands dragged the rusted shovel through the few spots of spare dirt and dropped in with the rest of the pile. His feet barely scuffled his body to his shack lined around his assigned section of landmill. It could fit three comfortably. Seven uncomfortably.

Unfortunatly, most prisons don't aim for comfort.

How many years? he thought to himself. The sun barely seemed to rise at all, and Benjamin Barker hardly believed it existed anymore.

A new one, he'd come in days ago. He'd told another it was 1846. Fifteen years. Joanna would be nearly sixteen, by now. She must look like her mother, he thought. He couldn't imagine a child of his with constant pale skin and grey tufts hanging in their eye. She _had _to look like Lucy.

He smiled, the movement unfamiliar to him. His lips cracked, and the copper taste of blood slid down his barren dry throught. He let it fall. No more of that.

Lucy, her hair golden as the missing sun, her teeth white as the clouds that hung in front of it.

He fell onto his matted blanket, ignoring the nightly scrabble for the scraps of food the warden didn't want. He was tired. He could wait.

His eyes flickered shut, and Benjamin prayed for sleep so he could continue his dreams, the only place that seemed just to the world.

His chest ached with fumes, and he could hear the dull thumping of his heart slow. Thier glowing faces took the whole of his mind, expanding util it was all he could see, and with it, he fell into the black abyss once more.

'''

Sweeney Todd stared at the crooked ceiling, with the rotted wood threatening to give way, crushing his head in. If only he were so lucky.

Mrs. Lovett--scratch that, he grimaced, Mrs. _Todd_--snorted beside him, her sunken face twitching in her heavy sleep. Her hair was more ascew then he had thought he'd ever be forced to see. Her body was twisted in the sheets, her arms hanging off the side of the filthy bed.

The wedding, like all else in life, was dull. He'd agreed to it, simply to shut her lip and stop her incessent begging. To him, it was no better then fifteen years of hard labor. She, on the other hand, had been giddy as a school girl. She'd worn an over-elaborate dress, though still reeking of the poor. A priest, one of the few still in existence, muttered the proceedings like one would at an execution. Perhaps he knew dear Mrs. Lovett.

At least Toby seemed excited.

Was Toby going to replace Joanna? Was he replacing his little daughter with a scrub boy?

Todd passed him on a dirty couch under an old blanket beside the bedroom. His cheeks, he could see even through the dark, was smudged with dirt.

Outside, the ocean churned, brewing with malice. Appropriate.

He didn't want a little shack beside the sea. He didn't want to even be _here_. He didn't want any of it. It was a strict matter of convienience. Maybe, not so convienent.

He walked towards the shore, the rocks cutting into his bare feet like knives. As though it mattered, he made his steps lighter.

The water barely touched his blackened, blistered toes. It was cold.

He fingered his razor blade, the one he'd promised Judge Turpins throat. Just like he'd promised Lucy, and whatever ill God decided to bestow this life upon him, that through anything, he'd be with her. Never had he been so sure to keep both.

He sighed, tossing the knife into the black water, along with it every promise he had ever made.

'''

"She's alive. Living out on the street over there. Gone mad, I'm afraid."

**A/N Whoo! I'm back! This idea was stuck in my mind for a while, an I'm bored...and I ran out of Red Bull. The last two are pretty bad. The last one is short on purpose, and I'll let you imagine what would happen, because I'm not gonna go into that. Hope you like, maybe I'll think of more later.**


End file.
